The present invention relates to a grooved noodle and particularly to a noodle formed with a plurality of grooves along a longitudinal direction of the noodle and having a substantially circular configuration in cross section.
In the prior art, there has been proposed a noodle having one or more slit or groove along a longitudinal direction of a noodle with an object of achieving a shortened cooking time. For example, JP 1985-6172 A discloses a noodle having four wedge-shaped grooves with a depth not reaching the center of the cross section thereof, and another noodle having a single wedge-shaped or rectangular-shaped groove with a depth reaching the center of the cross section thereof.
The noodle having wedge-shaped grooves with a depth not reaching the center of the noodle can certainly shorten the cooking time in boiling water as compared with a noodle without grooves but fails to significantly reduce the cooking time because such shallow grooves did not assist in quickly conducting heat to the inside of the noodle during cooking. On the other hand, the noodle formed with a wedge-shaped or rectangular-shaped groove with a depth reaching the center of the noodle achieves shortening of the cooking time by a maximum of about a half as compared with a noodle without grooves but then is difficult to be cooked in such a way that the noodle gives a good texture (al dente) slightly having a half-boiled core portion that is pleasant to the taste as required of spaghetti, for example, because the core portion of the noodle is boiled too quickly.
JP 2001-17104 A proposes a quickly edible spaghetti with four substantially rectangular and equally spaced grooves having a depth of 20% to 30% of a diameter of a circular cross section of thereof to obtain a texture slightly having a half-boiled core.